Easter Offensive

The Easter Offensive was a major NVA and Viet Cong offensive which occurred from 30 March to 22 October 1972 during the Vietnam War. In the second major NVA offensive of the war, 300,000 communist troops attacked South Vietnam on three fronts. While they were unable to cause South Vietnam's collapse, they made great territorial gains which prepared them for a final offensive in 1975.

As President Richard Nixon met with Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow in an attempt to ease Cold War tensions, North Vietnamese First Secretary Le Duan decided to undertake a new, conventional warfare offensive on a scale he had never before attempted. He sought to strengthen his hand at the peace talks by altering the military balance of power in Vietnam, to show the ARVN that they could not stand on their own, and to convince the Soviets and Chinese that his revolution was still worth supporting. The assault began on 30 March 1972, and 14 NVA divisions (120,000 troops), supported by hundreds of Soviet and Chinese-made tanks, attacked on three fronts: across the Demilitarized Zone, in the Central Highlands, and west of Saigon. Whole battalions of the ARVN 3rd Division joined refugees on the roads south after being overpowered and overwhelmed, and an entire regiment surrendered at Camp Carroll. NVA troops then swiftly overran Quang Tri Province, driving tens of thousands of terrified refugees southward. They nearly cut South Vietnam in half through the Central Highlands and drove towards Saigon, hoping to seize large areas along the Cambodian border. There were only 60,000 US soldiers left in South Vietnam, and very few of them were combat troops; all that Nixon and Henry Kissinger had worked for was on the brink of collapse. Nixon ordered Operation Linebacker I on the advancing NVA, heavily bombing North Vietnam and thwarting their resupply efforts. The most crucial battle of the offensive was the Battle of An Loc, which was fought for control of the vital Route 13, which carried An Loc just 60 miles to Saigon. A single ARVN division held out for 66 days, defending the last square mile of the city until the NVA and Viet Cong were forced to withdraw. In the end, American air power made the difference. The NVA and their armored columns, massed in the open, were easy targets for American pilots. At An Loc alone, the NVA lost 10,000 men and most of their tanks and artillery. The ARVN also held Kontum and retook Quang Tri, defeating the Easter Offensive. Nixon then took the unprecedented step of mining the harbor at Haiphong to prevent Soviet and Chinese ships from bringing supplies to North Vietnam.